Surreal at the Art Gallery

We wandered up hill to the Art Gallery - loved that it is so easy to navigate the centre of Auckland and most things are within an easy walk, hills notwithstanding. What a wonderful space and clearly in the knowledge we were visiting, the surrealists were out in force. Before we knew it the day was half gone and we were heading off to the nearby park to do some .... rubbings. The descriptions below are mainly from the Museum - the visit one of the highlights of our trip!

Just wanted to touch this ... and explore all the pipes and supposedly empty spaces

 

This is a small section of "Monkey's revenge" by Richard Killeen - and the cutouts that comprise the piece are never ordered int he same way each time it goes on display ... full of history, technology

 

The Simplest Surrealist Act is actually created by silkscreen on plexiglass - by David Hatcher - each letter is in isolation from the next rather than spaced - so the act of reading the phrase from the second Surrealist manifesto is rather hard to read as an optomestrist's eye chart.

 

we were all here once ... weren't we? 

 

 

From the balcony

 

Section of World Map was turned into a puzzle and created by Swedish artist Oyvind Fahlstrom - which he created as a do it yourself interactive. The cartoon pieces carry messages about suffering and corruption. Could have spent a very very long time here ...

 

Man in a Bus (left) and Woman in a Bus (right)  were created by Alison Duff in 1961. She used concrete for the modelling because of the cost of bronze casting - too expensive. Took a long time over the way she has represented the body - beautiful long lines and exquisitely proportioned.